Till Kingdom Come
by secretspark89
Summary: A colleague of Saleem Ulman's, a man from a rather dark time in Ziva's past, resurfaces in the D.C. area, throwing her, and subsequently Tony's life, into utter turmoil. Tony, however, is determinedly unwilling to let the progress they've made unravel. In canon, Season 10; Post Prime Suspect/Hereafter.
1. Stay

(tony/ziva) Kingdom Come

Chapter 1: Stay

For you, I'd wait 'til kingdom come.  
Until my day, my day is done.  
And say you'll come, and set me free,  
Just say you'll wait; you'll wait for me.

* * *

"I d_o not know_ what the problem is," she told Tony, her annoyance clearly resonating through her voice. "All of a sudden, last week, there was this…," Ziva's lips puckered, and three small creases formed right beneath her hairline as she searched for the right word. "_Grinding_!" she snapped her fingers decisively. "It sounded like something was _grinding_ when I put my foot on the brakes."

His weight supported by the frame of her desk, Tony crossed his arms in disapproval as he peered down at her. "And you drove it like that for a week?" he asked, wide-eyed at the blatant indifference for her own well-being. "That's just, not safe, Ziva. Don't you have AAA?"

Ziva shrugged off his concern, stealing a few sips of Tony's coffee. Her attention was already re-focused, eyes scanning her inbox, sifting through unopened emails, but Tony couldn't help but quirk a brow at her complete lack of discretion.

_Had he missed something?_

Not to say he minded, in the least_, but when exactly had they started casually sharing coffee?_

Of course, Tony knew other agents looked upon their partnership with confusion; while it was not unusual for agents to be friends outside of the workplace, it wasn't every day that they had such disregard for socially acceptable boundaries.

And while everyone knew Tony and Ziva were more than _just partners_, no one dared label their relationship.

But still, until recently, _Tony _had always been the one to finish Ziva's pizza crusts when she didn't want them, to give the subtle knee nudges and hip bumps, to tuck the stray strands of hair behind her ear.

_Because it made her smile. _

He'd always been the one to initiate.

And while at first, years ago, their closeness had been a game, both pushing and teasing_, and_ _recoiling_, over the past few months, they'd started to take comfort in each other's presence.

_No more secrets. _

_No more lies. _

_Only soul-baring honesty and little touches and near-crying._

_And hugging._

_And sleeping in his bed._

And the next night, after she'd boarded a plane to Tel Aviv, he'd woken_, _frustrated and anxious, wrapped in sheets covered in the sheer scent of her.

_Three times, that he could remember._

"If you continue to put so much sugar in your coffee," she teased, placing the eco-friendly paper cup back on her desk, leaving it to lay idle next to her mouse pad, "you will get diabetes." Her mouth twitched, her tongue slipping across her front teeth, swishing away that sweet, filmy feel.

"Says the woman driving her car _into the ground." _He pointedly picked up his cup and retreated back to his own desk. "You should get that checked out. If something is grinding, it's not a good thing." His face was serious, words laced with worry, "It's dangerous."

Ziva opened her mouth to argue, but Gibbs cut her off, rounding the corner into the bull pen, coffee and newspaper in hand. "It's your brakes," he disclosed, taking his seat. "That grinding ya' hear is metal on metal. And if you let it get that bad, you probably need new rotors while you're at it." He looked purposefully at Ziva. "You should have it towed," he said definitively. "DiNozzo's right. If your brakes are gone, it's not safe to drive."

Tony took a rather large, celebratory sip of his coffee.

But as he reclined in his chair, donning his signature DiNozzo grin, the only thing he could taste was vanilla.

_Ziva's chapstick._

He absentmindedly licked his lips.

_He could get used to this._

_.._

The day went by painstakingly slow.

_Mind-numbingly, always watching the clock, slow._

McGee was absent for most of the morning, his services needed down in Cyber Crimes for a particularly urgent matter involving a child, and Gibbs had been in MTAC with Director Vance, leaving Tony and Ziva to finish their incomplete reports from the past month.

_And if there was one part of the job that Tony hated, it was paperwork._

The team regrouped for lunch, but only to separate again, hurriedly snagging a few last signatures and tying up lingering loose ends, _one involving an oversight in regards to the proverbial 'chain of evidence' that Tony would rather forget_, before their weekend off.

And after he took his scolding from Edna, Dorneget's rather scary counterpart in the Evidence Locker, Tony stalked off the elevator, resolute on leaving as soon as possible.

He looked around the bull pen, finding, yet again, two empty desks. "McGee has already left," Ziva confirmed, a knowing answer to his unspoken question. "Gibbs said we could leave, but to keep our phones on. We are on call."

"Again?" he whined. Tony gathered his jacket and wallet with a huff of frustration.

_They were always on call._

He watched as Ziva collected her things; she threw her phone and charger into a pocket of her NCIS backpack, shrugged on her coat, _the one he liked with the red lining_, and grabbed her keys. "Ready?" she asked.

Tony eyed her suspiciously. "How exactly are you getting home?"

Ziva lifted her chin in her one-of-a-kind David defiance. "I am driving," she stated. "I made an appointment for service for tomorrow afternoon."

"Great," Tony clapped his hands. "You can call AAA first thing in the morning and have it towed in." When Ziva pulled a face, he took three long, easy strides and closed the space between them. "Look," he made a failed attempt to snatch her keys, "I'm not taking the phone call tomorrow that you went straight through the windshield when your brakes didn't work going _Ninja Ninety_ on the highway."

Ziva looked up at him; his green eyes were hard, unyielding, lips pressed into a thin line, and his right hand was placed firmly on his hip, fingers grazing his badge.

She took her bottom lip between her teeth.

_She didn't always need saving. _

_He knew that, right?_

"Please," he asked softly.

Ziva sighed and threw him a dramatic eye-roll. "Fine."

They entered the elevator, making their way to the ground floor, and Ziva took hold of Tony's left hand, twisting his arm to peek at his watch. "It is only seven thirty," she smiled up at him.

"Yeah, so?"

"I read about this thing in the paper today, after Gibbs had finished with it," she teased, her index finger lightly tapping her smiling lips. "I will let you drive me home," she bargained, "_if _you take me somewhere, first."

"Where?"

* * *

Tony looked down at the slumped over, sleeping figure beside him. She was, quite possibly, the most confusing, complicated woman he'd ever met.

_And she was worth it; every ounce of frustration, every last damn penny._

She'd thoroughly surprised him, not revealing their destination until they'd arrived, giving teasing, superfluous directions to some fundraiser; it was a makeshift Drive In on the frozen grass of Woodrow Wilson High School's football field, raising money to fund a select few students from their Senior Class to spend a week in the Deep South volunteering for Habitat for Humanity.

_Or, at least that's what the flyer said. _

And so, at two in the morning, Tony found himself perched atop the hood of his car, fingers intertwined behind his head as _Argo _came to an end.

_All with a sleeping Ziva David tucked soundly at his side._ And Tony was finding it very difficult to focus on the ending of, easily 2012's sole cinematic masterpiece, because he was, once again, being pulled into her stratosphere; although, if he'd ever said that out loud, she'd ask what stratus clouds had to do with anything.

_And because he'd seen the look on her face when they'd arrived, seen how genuinely pleased Ziva had been that she'd thought of such an outing as thanks for the ride home, Tony decided to keep to himself that the school most likely did not have a Public Performance License, and that they'd just violated at least three copyright laws._

Truth was, he couldn't think of a better way to spend a Friday night.

The end credits rolled and the thunderous, echoed applause woke Ziva from her awkwardly positioned slumber. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes with the palms, and sat up, running her hands through her long, wavy tresses; the green blanket that lie beneath them covering the hood of his car_, the one that she just insisted on buying at the ticket counter,_ was cheap fleece and it made her hair static-y.

"So, you bring me to a Ben Affleck Movie Marathon,'" he teased, "and then you fall asleep during _The Town_?" He shook his head in mock disappointment, "No stamina."

She crinkled her nose playfully, but the pink tinges that flushed her cheeks exposed her embarrassment. Tony hopped off the car and collected the empty soda bottles and souvenir red and white popcorn buckets strewn across the hood; "Come on," he extended a hand; Ziva willingly accepted, jumping down gracefully to join him. "Let's go."

_She'd even let him open the car door for her._

_Strides, DiNozzo. Strides_

_.._

They'd almost made it back to Ziva's apartment when Tony felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out and read the name flashing incessantly on the screen, "Gibbs."

_Damn._

"Got it boss," he answered. "Yeah, I'll get her. Okay."

He sighed. "We've got a case."

"I heard," Ziva yawned; she took the phone from his hand, and noting the red flashing battery, plugged it into the lighter outlet by her knee. "If you grab your to-go bag from the trunk, you can shower at my place." She rested her head against the window, but determinedly kept her eyes open.

_Because if she closed them again, she would want to sleep until Monday._

"How do you know I have a to-go bag?" he mused.

She stifled a laugh. "Are you telling me you don't?"

Even with his eyes firmly on the road, Tony knew she was smiling in victory_; he could just hear it_ in her voice. She knew him too well. "Fine, I do," he admitted. "Smarty pants."

..

They were showered and back in the car within forty five minutes, and despite using his own travel sized soap and shampoo, all Tony could smell around him _was Ziva_.

_There had to be something in the water._

_Or maybe in his head._

_Definitely in his car. _

He pulled up to the Drive thru window at the only open Starbucks within a twenty mile radius, and paid for four coffees, handing the paper tray to Ziva, who was content to hold them in her lap purely for their emanating warmth. Tony caught himself staring at her, mouth slightly agape, before quickly turning his attention back to the road and pulling away from the window; _luckily, all before Ziva had taken notice_. The moments he got to see her like this..., they were either too few and far between, or under unsavory circumstances. But he liked seeing her this way, when she was all comfortable and domestic. Her hair was down by her shoulders, still wet, pulling themselves into perfect little ringlets, and because it was their weekend off they were granted relaxed dress code, so she was dressed in dark, distressed denim and a thin, plumb colored sweater.

_And everything hugged her curves perfectly; it was like she was taunting him._

_And then, for some reason, upon seeing their refection in the elevator doors back at NCIS, his dark green button down looked damn good next to her sweater._

_He looked damn good standing next to her._

_You know how some people just look like they belong together?_

_.._

When they arrived, Gibbs was already arched behind McGee's desk looking over his shoulder at the computer screen. "Put it up on the screen, McGee."

Tony and Ziva dropped their effects at their respective desks, and positioned themselves a few feet away from the plasma. He stood behind her, bumping the back of her knee with his own, aptly catching her eye and reaching around her, cheekily handing Ziva her White Mocha;

_It amazed her, really, how charming he could be, even at four in the morning._

And while they slipped quickly into their own little corner of closeness, Tim hung back behind his monitor, scrutinizing the film in HD, Gibbs spotlighting the frames he wanted augmented.

McGee clicked a few buttons and black-and-white surveillance footage popped up on screen, in fuzzy, washed out quality. "We've got a dead Marine," he explained. "First Lieutenant Christopher Fields. He got into an altercation with an unknown suspect in the middle of Dupont Circle. Abby's running facial recognition now." Tim fast forwarded a few frames to an unfocussed shot of the suspect.

"Of Middle Eastern decent," McGee continued. "And there were traces of ammonium nitrate on Fields' jacket, where he was grabbed, _here_," he pointed to the screen, freeze framing a particularly clear shot of the assailant wrestling Fields to the ground.

At first, Tony thought he was the only one who'd heard Ziva's gasp; he was sure it'd been barely audible, possibly a figment of his imagination, the sad, soft whimper that escaped her lips. But he watched her back straighten, shoulders square off, and if possible, Tony was sure he'd physically felt the wall_, that invisible wall he'd worked four years to tear down brick by god damn brick_, go straight back up, putting miles between them when she was hardly an inch away.

"_Ziver_," Gibbs prodded gently, "you recognize him? He Mossad?"

"No," she snapped. "He is _not_ Mossad."

Tony's left hand instinctively came to rest under her elbow, _on the side that McGee and Gibbs couldn't see,_ but she quickly pulled away, leaving nothing but a cold shiver in her wake.

"Ziva," Gibbs repeated in a firmer tone, "_Who is he_?"

She turned to the right, directly facing Gibbs and giving Tony an unbridled view of her face. She blinked down, he noticed, fighting the shine in her eyes that threatened to run over and spill down her cheeks.

But she wouldn't cry; he knew that. Especially in front of an audience.

Ziva straightened again, three pair of eyes fixated on her. "His name is Law'ī ibn Tariq," she said coolly. "But he answers to Levi, his American name."

They all looked at her in question, but Tony was the only one to put a voice to their collective query.

_But, somewhere, somehow, he already knew. _

_He just knew, and it killed him._

"How do you know him?"

Ziva removed herself from between the two agents, suddenly uncomfortable being so surrounded; she needed air, feeling trapped, and she retreated behind her desk in search of an elastic. "He was a colleague of Saleem's," she admitted, securing her hair into a high, tight ponytail. "If my memory serves me correctly- eh, serves me well," she stumbled over her words, eyes closing in frustration, "if my memory serves me well, on your assignment to North Africa…" She stopped, and gave Tony one last heartbreaking look before slipping back into her comfortable Mossad-esque façade. "-you missed him by no more than a week."

And suddenly, Tony was terrified, because no matter how hard he searched her face, no matter how hard he begged with his eyes, he couldn't find her.

_Don't do this._

* * *

A/N;

Okay, phew, that was rough. This chapter, believe it or not, actually took me all day; I actually scrapped a few versions before I settled on this one.

And you, yeah you: I just want to let you know that your reviews and follows and favorites for my other stories are overwhelming and generous, and I appreciate every single one of them. Between Chemistry of a Car Crash, and Letters from the Sky (my two other active T/Z stories), believe me I'm feeling the love guys; and I'm reflecting back unto you, in a non weird way! Hopefully I can keep with my own schedule of at least one decent chapter every other day or so.

So thanks again!

Also, I've created a tumblr, and I've added the link on my profile page if anyone is interested.

Once again, thank you;

Your reviews and such are always welcomed and appreciated, especially after writing this...my heart like, hurts now. ugh, right in the feels.

Until next time,

Katie


	2. Just Give Me a Reason

(tony/ziva) Kingdom Come

Chapter 2: Just Give Me a Reason

It's in the stars;  
It's been written in the scars on our hearts,  
We're not broken just bent,  
And we can learn to love again.

* * *

"DiNozzo!" Tony grimaced at the sound of Gibbs bounding down the stairs from MTAC.

_Even his footsteps sounded angry._

"Where's Ziva?"

_Two hours._

She'd sat there for two hours silently typing up the dossier Vance had requested, because although Tariq was a known and wanted terrorist, the most recent addition to his file had been circa 2007.

And within that time frame, Tony had spent a good hour and a half just watching her. First he'd tried subtlety, feigning interest in old files and video feeds while he watched her from the corner of his eye; and when that didn't work, Tony took to boldfaced staring.

_Because he was willing endure her wrath, if she would just look at him. _

Tony propped his elbows upon his desk, massaging his temple in an ill-fated attempt to rub away the building throb of his headache. "I don't know what the hell happened," he admitted angrily.

_Because, God, was he angry with himself. _

_How the hell had he let her just walk away?_

He stood to join Gibbs by Ziva's desk; "Tim called and asked me to check a file, and the next thing I know, she's just _gone_."

_Sneaky little ninja_.

"She's not gone, DiNozzo," Gibbs assured him. "She knows better than to leave without permission." It sounded contrite, but Tony knew it was true; if there was one thing Ziva was good at, _one thing Ziva was adamant about_, it was following orders. "Where would she go?"

"I checked autopsy thinking maybe she went to see Ducky…" Tony counted on his fingers, "the grounds, the break-room, the women's room, _the men's room_..." He shook his head in disbelief.

"Her phone?" Gibbs asked.

"On her desk," Tony nodded towards the little black phone that lay idle next to her coffee. "Took her gun, though," he added quickly. "It's not in the top drawer where she keeps it."

Gibbs took one look at his Senior Field Agent, _one look at the distress etched across his features_, and he had to fight the sudden pressing urge to slap him. There was a purpose for his rules, a sound reasoning behind every single one; _but these two_, while technically following them to a tee, had found some god-damn loop hole, _some way to get around Rule #12 without actually breaking it_, and now DiNozzo was looking at him like a lost puppy. And because Gibbs just couldn't bear to look at him anymore, he took pity. "Go," he urged. "Find her, and make sure she doesn't do something stupid."

"Should I bring her home?"

Gibbs knew what he was asking, and as much as he wanted to say yes, _to tell Tony to just stay with her_, they needed her help to find Tariq. She was the key, "No, DiNozzo," he sighed. "Bring her back. We need her for this." He hated it; hated what he was going to have to ask her to relive, and judging by the look on Tony's face, he was in good company. "Didn't say I liked it."

"What if this is it, Boss?" he challenged. "What if this is what finally breaks her?"

_Why was it DiNozzo only challenged his authority when it came to Ziva?_

"You're not giving her much credit, DiNozzo. She's strong."

"Yeah, well maybe you're just expecting too much from her."

Gibbs thrust Ziva's abandoned phone into Tony's hands. "What do you want me to say? Huh?" he growled. "Have her go home and take a backseat while we flop around trying to fill in the gaping holes left in his file? You think she'd even allow that?"

"No," he nodded dumbly. "She wouldn't."

"_So go, and find her_." Gibbs ordered again; he took his place behind his desk, his eyes glued to Tony's back. "DiNozzo?" he called, beckoning him with a crooked index finger. Tony leaned in, permitting Gibbs' voice to drop down to a strained whisper. "If this is it, DiNozzo," he warned, "If this is what breaks her…"

Tony lifted a brow; _If?_

"Then I guess you better be there to pick up the pieces. But let's try to not let it get that far, huh?"

"Best defense is a good offense," he agreed. "Got it, Boss."

..

Tony shoved his phone back into his pocket, exchanging it for his keys, and said a silent prayer for Kevin and his expertise over the new security cameras that surrounded NCIS. And although Kevin had lost her somewhere in the parking lot, at least Tony knew she'd left the building and he could stop aimlessly roaming the halls.

_Thirty five minutes of his life that he'd never get back_.

He approached his car, determined to drive around until he found her, but through the frosted window to his backseat, he made out her silhouette, her high pony tail bobbing up as she undoubtedly felt his presence. Tony found the door unlocked, _which certainly was not the way he'd left it_, and poked his head in; his smile faltered at the sight of her. She was backed up in the far right corner, legs tightly crossed, seemingly staring at the passenger seat headrest. He scanned her face; there was no sign she'd been crying, _no sign of any emotion at all_, but the sleeves of her sweater gave her away; the thin plumb material was tear stained, stretched passed her wrist. She looked up at him through her thick lashes. "What?"

"You gonna' make room for me, David?"

"It is your mess," she gestured towards his gym bag and the _various crap_ scattered across his backseat.

Tony let out a frustrated huff, and haphazardly shoved everything into his trunk. "So," he asked cheekily, "what are we doing down here?"

_And god, she must have been freezing_. _She had no coat; and stupidly, he hadn't thought to bring his_.

Ziva gazed out the front windshield. "I was just…_thinking._"

"About what?"

"Nothing."

"Ziva-"

"Tony," she gave him a dangerous look; "Before you start, _I do not want to talk about this_."

Her eyes were literally screaming at him, warning him.

_Do not trespass_.

"Okay," he conceded. "What _do you_ want to talk about? The fact that they're going to have to chop off that thumb if you don't stop?" He looked down at her left hand; she'd bitten right down passed the nail bed of her thumb and it'd started to bleed, the offensive dark red pooling along her cuticle. "Trying to contract gangrene?"

Of course he'd noticed it before, that awful nervous habit; she was always picking at her fingers, or biting them. But her nails had always been just long enough to be feminine, squared off and always coated in a glossy clear polish. Now her left hand looked like it could belong to an MMA fighter.

"It is fine," she dismissed. "Just a flesh wound."

He let out a frustrated sigh and reclined in the bucket seat; "I thought we were past this," he mused quietly. "Remember? No more lies. Telling each other things, _about things_?"

Ziva's lips puckered into a pout, obviously displeased, albeit he wasn't sure whether it was with the turn in conversation, or his mere presence. Her eyes shifted to her knees, and she resumed picking at her nails. "I have not lied to you, Tony," she said slowly. "I have not said anything."

"A lie by omission is still a lie."

Her body twisted suddenly, her back against the door frame, eyes flickered with anger. "And what should I say? Hmmm?" she shouted; her accent was markedly thick with fury. "You wish to know every sordid detail of my life?"

Tony's eyes went wide at her brazen response. He wasn't expecting the sudden change in demeanor; _the rage_, and it rendered him speechless.

"I thought not."

They sat in silence for minutes, _minutes that felt like hours_, until Tony found his voice.

"I can't help, if you won't fill me in on what's wrong. On what's happening."

"And who says I need help?" she challenged. "I am not one of your _damsels in distress, _Tony. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

He smiled at the thought; _Ziva, a damsel in distress._

_That was a good one_.

"Or," she continued, taking note of his chosen silence, "perhaps I am tired of being the only one willing to share. As of recent." Ziva regretted the words the second they'd tumbled past her lips; she even opened her mouth to take them back, but her teeth ground together in defiance, and she melded back into her seat.

_He'd said he wanted honesty, right? Well, honesty was all she had left_.

And this was the kind of honesty she could deal with right now, they kind that put Tony in the hot seat, for once. There was just no way she could tell him how each and every morning, her four mile run ended with tears streaming down her face, _because it was probably just the wind stinging her eyes anyways_; and how could she tell him that the reason she was the first one to arrive in the morning and the last to leave at night, _that the reason she was all too willing to go to some Drive In with him in the freezing cold when she was so tired her body might actually give out_, was because Ziva David was afraid to slow down, afraid to spend any length of time alone, incase her emotions caught up with her.

_Because she knew when they did, it would be a bitch_.

"I share things with you," he argued softly.

"Yes, well. I seem to be the only one doing all the talking recently."

_Of course she would look at it that way. Of course she would take one of the saddest, most life changing experiences, and turn it around on him_.

And while he could clearly see where the shift in communication occurred, _for, he had no dead father, or sister, and there were no ghosts from his past threatening to resurrect undoubtedly the most traumatic experience of his life_, it was obvious Ziva could not. She looked at things in black and white, in right and wrong, and somehow, despite his best efforts, Tony had ended up in the wrong.

_It was some crazy ninja logic that, in his exhausted state, Tony was unable to follow_.

But after all these years, Tony had learned, that even when he didn't understand her, _which was often, with her keen ability to make up her own words_, to just go with the flow, so to speak.

_And if he couldn't coax her damn feelings out of her, he'd bribe them_.

"What are we looking for here, David?" he asked with a smile; his newly formulated plan had obviously lifted his spirits. "Heart-wrenching or heart-warming?" He stared off into space with the intent on looking thoughtful, his fist chucked beneath his chin.

Ziva rolled her eyes. She knew what he was doing, using his funny man alter ego to dissuade the situation; "I do not want you to share something, Tony," she admitted gently, "because you feel you have too."

She took to biting on the side of her nail again, but Tony boldly smacked her hand away from her face; "Stop that," he chastised. "You can't shoot a gun with four fingers, and _I need my partner_."

Silence enveloped them again, only broken by Ziva's shivers, her hands now safely hidden under her legs, and Tony pressed the remote starter on his key, bringing the engine to life with a dull roar. He climbed between the front seats and turned up the heat, resolute they would be a while still.

_Why hadn't he done that fifteen minutes ago? _

_Jesus, the woman made him stupid_.

Tony fell back into his seat and caught Ziva's eye; she peeked at him curiously, his bottom jaw shifting a few times as he carefully chose his words. "Do you know why my dad likes you so much?" he asked quickly. "I mean he likes everyone, but you must have noticed…," he paused, and threw her a genuine smile; "He likes you the best?"

"Besides the obvious?" her nose crinkled playfully.

_Okay, good; he'd done something right_.

"Well," he took in a loud, cold breath, and cleared his throat. "I think he attributes our newly rekindled father/son relationship…_to you_."

"To me?" Ziva shook her head in confusion. "I have done nothing, Tony."

"Well, when you were gone…that summer," he clarified, "it'd been probably two years since I'd seen him. Almost a year since I'd spoken to him. Unless you count those birthday emails," he pondered teasingly. Tony dug out his wallet and handed Ziva the old, creased picture from a fishing trip many a year ago. "Anyways, it'd been a while since we'd been _like that_."

Ziva's fingers fluttered across the photo, and she smiled at young Tony.

_He was kind of cute, all proud of his big fish_.

She wondered, for a moment, who had taken the picture; if maybe, it had been his mother, but she silently stored that question away for a later date, and peered back at him, waiting patiently for him to continue.

"Like I said, it'd been a while." He let Ziva hold onto the photo while he spoke.

_At least she was doing something with her hands other than chewing them off_.

"Well, I called him, before we left," he cleared his throat again, "and found you." He smiled, but it was fake, clearly meant for reassurance. "I knew I wasn't coming back_. I had no intentions_ of coming back."

She watched his lips twitch, _like they were his last defense in keeping whatever 'it' was a secret_, and Ziva knew, by telling her, _it was hurting him_. She almost didn't want him to finish.

_Almost_.

"He didn't answer, though," he sighed. "So I had to leave him a message. I told him I knew he'd tried and that I thought he was a good father, given the circumstances…"

_He'd been putting his affairs in order_.

Ziva's eyes narrowed in realization. "You told him you loved him."

"No," he let out a humorless laugh, his hand scraping his scalp mercilessly as he racked his mind. "No. For some reason, I couldn't do that."

She could feel her heart squeezing, _or maybe something was squeezing it_, for the little boy in the picture. Ziva peeked down at it again.

_And it must have been her sheer exhaustion, because she thought she was going to cry. _

_Again_.

"He called back, later. A few hours before we took off, but I didn't answer."

She left her head bowed, her long pony tail falling over her left shoulder; and so she twisted a few strands with her free hand. "Why not?" she asked.

"I had a good parting line," he scoffed proudly. "Sorry Dad," he mimicked in his low, gravelly movie voice. "_I gotta see about a girl_."

Her head snapped up, and Ziva met his gaze, her tongue laving the roof of her mouth as she exhaled loudly.

_Was he trying to kill her?_

"It's a line from a movie," he added quickly.

"I know what it is."

"You do?"

"Yes, yes. Good Will Hunting, yes?"

He nodded in agreement.

_Or maybe disbelief; she couldn't quite tell_.

"I rented it, a very long time ago, from one of those," she wiggled her fingers in indifference, "red box things at the supermarket."

"From a Red Box."

"That's what I said."

"No," he chuckled. "They're called Red Boxes. It's the name of the company."

"Oh, well, whatever. A fortunate mistake," she confessed. "With the title, I thought it would have something to do, with hunting-"

"With guns," he clarified.

"Yes, _with guns_," she poked him defiantly. "But it was a good movie regardless."

"A good movie, Ziva? It's a Classic! Remind me," he said offhandedly, "to write a strongly worded letter to that high school. They didn't even play that movie. _That _should have been the finale."

"You are such a movie snob."

Tony looked at her in mock frustration. "A man likes what he likes, Zee-vah." He looked down at her again, _and God, she was finally smiling_, and realized he'd gone off on a tangent; "Anyways, it was what?" he asked rhetorically. "A month or two after we got back? He called a few times, _granted usually at three in the morning_," he teased, "to check in. And slowly, the calls and visits are becoming more frequent, and things are…getting _better_."

She sniffled, and Tony's head turned to find her gazing out the window, elbow propped up against the door, with her sleeve once again stretched past her fingers, stopping stray tears from tumbling past her cheek.

_And oh God, she was crying._

_What the Hell had he done?_

* * *

A/N:  
I'm almost done with chapter three; it won't take a week, this time, I promise.

And hey, you guys are killing me with your reviews and follows.

I. Love. It.

I hope I was able to keep this in character as much as I think I did.

Meh. Angst is my weakness.

As usual, I'd love to hear what you guys think!

Till next time,

Katie.


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